Israel Holds, Seeks To Deport 2 Christian Groups

October 26, 1999|By New York Times News Service.

JERUSALEM — Fearing a possible outburst of millennium-related violence, Israeli authorities rounded up members of two Christian groups living on the slopes of the Mount of Olives on Monday and ordered 20 of them deported.

In an overnight raid, dozens of police officers descended on Eizariya, an Arab suburb of Jerusalem also known by its biblical name, Bethany, and arrested 26 men, women and children, mostly Americans from New York and Denver.

Six Christians were released later, and the rest were detained for deportation, on the grounds that their visas had expired.

They were given 72 hours to appeal the deportation orders.

Their names were not immediately released, but the Interior Ministry said the group included 13 Americans, 3 Britons, 3 Jamaicans and an Australian.

The police said they had only vague suspicions about the groups, which were led by two men known as Brother David and Brother Solomon, who had been living quietly on the Mount of Olives for several years, promoting their visions of a millennial apocalypse.

"We had a general assessment that under certain conditions they could pose a danger to public safety," said Rafi Yaffe, a police spokesman. "There was nothing specific."

It was the third time this year that Israeli authorities, concerned that apocalyptic cults might be planning acts of violence to coincide with the millennium, have ordered Christian groups out of the country.

Security officials are said to be worried that members of extreme Christian groups could kill themselves or others, or even try to blow up Islamic shrines on Jerusalem's Temple Mount in cooperation with Jewish radicals in an attempt to hasten an Arab-Israeli war they see as a necessary prelude to the Second Coming of Christ.

In January, 14 members of a Denver-based group called Concerned Christians were rounded up and expelled after officials said they were planning to commit suicide or die in a shootout with police in the Old City of Jerusalem.